The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is proposing to cut payments for most “separately payable Part B drugs” purchased under the 340B program and dispensed to Medicare hospital outpatients in its Medicare Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) calendar year (CY) 2018 proposed rule. “Separately payable Part B drugs” generally refer to those that have per-day costs about the packaging threshold, pass through drugs and certain antiemetics. CMS proposes payment at Average Sales Price (ASP) minus 22.5%, rather than ASP plus 6% (the current payment rate), for a nearly 30% cut.

Yesterday, KHA sent the chief financial officer of each 340B hospital paid under the OPPS a brief survey regarding the impact of this payment cut. KHA will summarize this data in support of its comments to CMS (due September 11)
opposing these cuts.

CEOs, please encourage your CFO to respond to the survey by Wednesday, September 6.

Several Kentucky hospitals and health systems with hospitals in Kentucky were honored by the 2017 Health Care's Most Wired survey, conducted by Hospitals & Health Networks and the American Hospital Association with the assistance of several experts from the field.

In addition to the survey's usual topics, for the first time, the survey included detailed questions on how quickly data could be restored in the event of a disaster that causes the complete loss of the primary data system. More than half of the Most Wired (58 percent) said clinical information systems such as the EHR, laboratory and radiology would be available within four hours, compared with 49 percent of all respondents. Close to half of Most Wired respondents also said that within four hours, they would have access to financial systems,...

The Centers for Disease Control's (CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics conducts the National
Health Care Surveys, which include the National Hospital Care Survey (NHCS), National
Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS), and the
National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS). These
nationally representative surveys provide data and information used by
Congress, health care services researchers and others to shape health care
policy and the future of health care in the United States.

The National Center for Health Statistics is accepting registration from
eligible clinicians (ECs), eligible professionals (EPs), eligible hospitals
(EHs) or critical access hospitals (CAHs) of their intent to submit data to
the National Health Care Surveys as part of the Merit-Based Incentive
Payment System (MIPS) and the...

Good oral health policy should reflect the opinions of its stakeholders.
The Kentucky Oral Health Program (through the Department for Public Health) is conducting a survey for many different
stakeholders to glean attitudes and values regarding the state’s oral
health status and issues. The survey, available at
https://kdph.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cva98qXxpcbmksZ
takes less than 8 minutes to complete. There are no “fill in the blank” questions and all responses are confidential. Please respond by the close of business on May 12.

Health care professionals and hospital executives are also invited to attend the two-day Kentucky Oral Health Stakeholders
Meeting on May 31.
This meeting is to update Kentucky’s Strategic Plan for Oral Health. It brings together oral health stakeholders from across the state for their input and ideas about oral health, access to care and the development of new programs...

Thanks to those chief executive officers who have submitted contact information for the staff that will be responsible for completing this year’s survey. If you have not sent your contact information, please do so before the end of this week. Notices to contact staff will be sent next week and the survey will be opened for completion.

The KHA Workforce Survey will begin in April. The entire survey has been revamped and improved based on member input.

In order to obtain the most complete picture of the hospital workforce in Kentucky, KHA needs input from every hospital. If you have not already done so this year, please provide the name and email address for the person who will complete the survey in your organization.

To submit your information or if you have any questions, please contact Chuck Warnick at KHA (cwarnick@kyha.com).

The Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics conducts the National
Health Care Surveys, which include the National Hospital Care Survey (NHCS), National
Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) and the
National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS). These
nationally representative surveys provide data and information used by
Congress, health care services researchers and others to shape health care
policy and the future of health care in the United States.

The National Center for Health Statistics is accepting registration from
eligible professionals (EPs), eligible hospitals (EHs) or Critical Access
Hospitals (CAHs) of their intent to submit data to the National Health Care
Surveys as part of the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs
(Meaningful Use). Providers may attest...

KHA will again promote and provide front-line support for Kentucky hospitals to complete the AHA Annual Survey for your fiscal year 2015. It is vitally important to collect accurate and updated information about your institution each year. Health care leaders, policy makers and researchers use the AHA Annual Survey to better describe and understand the operations of U.S. hospitals. The 2015 survey is being offered ONLINE at www.ahasurvey.org.

If you have any questions, please contact Melanie Moch at KHA (mmoch@kyha.com).

The Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) is collecting health services utilization data through the annual survey process. This data is published in a report each year and is critical information used for health care access, planning and the Certificate of Need (CON) Program. CEOs should have received an email from Beth Morris (betha.morris@ky.gov) as well as a letter by mail with instructions for completing the hospital, surgery and megavolt/Pet/MRI surveys.

Please make sure the appropriate person in your organization completes these surveys and returns them as soon as possible to Morris. If you have questions or you do not receive the survey requests, contact Morris in the Office of Health Policy at the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

The first week of January, each hospital will receive email notification from Compdata that participation for KHA's 2016 Compensation and Benefits Survey is open. Now is a good time to discuss the survey with your team to decide who will complete the survey in January for each of your locations (if applicable).

As a reminder, you will receive the survey results FREE of charge if you provide a complete data submission by the survey deadline. Don't miss out on the most comprehensive health care compensation resource in Kentucky — mark your calendar for January participation today!

State Auditor Adam Edelen is overseeing an investigation into Kentucky's process of sexual assault evidence kits. As part of this work, the Auditor's office has distributed an electronic survey for hospitals to complete. If your hospital has not yet completed this survey, please take a moment to make sure that this survey is completed by you or someone in your hospital by Friday, July 31.

Please see the message from the State Auditor below with a link to the survey:

Dear Hospital Administrator,

As you may be aware, Senate Joint Resolution 20, passed by the 2015 General Assembly, directed my office to report on the number of untested sexual assault evidence kits in the possession of Kentucky law enforcement. We are asking that a representative from your hospital complete this brief online survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/APAhospitalsurvey....

KHA is extending the deadline for the AHA Annual Survey for your fiscal year 2014. Kentucky hospitals will have until June 19 to complete the AHA Survey.

It is vitally important to collect accurate and updated information about your institution each year. Health care leaders, policy makers and researchers use the AHA Annual Survey to better describe and understand the operations of U.S. hospitals.

The AHA Annual Survey is an important source of provider data and is the origin of AHA Guide®, Hospital Statistics™ and U.S. News & World Report’s Directory of America’s Hospitals (www.usnews.com). Your response to the survey assures that your hospital’s information will be represented in these resources and available to individuals nationwide.

The 2014 survey is available online at www.ahasurvey.org. The web-based collection tool is easy, efficient and secure. Entering the data online allows you to:

KHA is investigating, as part of its strategic plan, developing an all-payer, all-Kentucky-hospital readmission tracking system. Current reporting is limited, through quality improvement (QI) programs, to readmissions within your hospital. While Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data does cover all hospitals, it is limited to Medicare patients. The value of creating a state-based system for collection will be to provide a true picture of readmissions and barriers as well as to replace manual, resource-intensive reporting in the future. KHA needs your input on the feasibility of developing a successful program.

KHA would offer aggregated reports to member facilities containing metrics for inpatient readmission. The reports would include all payer classifications within the database (Medicare, Medicaid Fee for Service, Medicaid Managed Care, Commercial, Self-Pay and Charity and Other Payers). The reports would be produced on a quarterly basis, and updated as new quarters of data are submitted.

On May 18, KHREF will host Getting Survey Ready in 2015 for the Physical Environment at the Crowne Plaza Louisville Airport. This one-day program will provide valuable information for those individuals who are responsible for creating the best possible environment of care, emergency management and life safety programs and must understand the 2015 Joint Commission survey methodology.

View the program for detailed information, including the agenda and registration.

If you have any questions, please contact Carol Walters at KHA (502-426-6220 or 800-945-4542 or via email at cwalters@kyha.com).

The 2015 KHA Salary Survey Questionnaire has been made available to all human resources professionals at Kentucky hospitals. Data Submissions are due by February 2 and results will be made available in April, at no charge to participating hospitals. KHA has also incorporated the 2015 Workforce Survey into this questionnaire.

The survey will collect valuable information on vacancies and separations for approximately 30 key health care positions. Completing all sections of the survey is a requirement to receive compensation survey results.

If you have any questions, please contact Kim Dees at KHA (502-426-6220 or 800-945-4542 or via email at kdees@kyha.com or Chuck Warnick at the same numbers and via email at cwarnick@kyha.com).

In September, all hospital chief financial officers received in the mail this one page survey on the programs and services each hospital provided in 2013 in relation to the IRS-defined community benefit categories.

To publish a statewide report, it is important that all acute care and specialty hospitals complete the one page survey, regardless of their not-for-profit or for-profit status. KHA requests the surveys be returned by November 15.

Please ask your hospital CFO if they have returned the survey. All information contained on the worksheet will be de-identified and only presented in aggregate.

If you have any questions, please contact Pam Kirchem at KHA (502-426-6220 or 800-945-4542 or via pkirchem@kyha.com).

This notice is to all hospital chief executive officers and directors of planning. KHA is conducting an in-depth study of outpatient surgery and ambulatory surgery center (ASC) utilization to help in developing comments in support of the Certificate of Need (CON) Program. The Cabinet issued a memorandum on October 8 requesting comments on the CON program, and also expressed interest in receiving comments about repealing the CON requirement for some services. The Cabinet is interested in looking at expanding availability of outpatient services. KHA is concerned this could include ASCs.

KHA requests every hospital providing outpatient surgery to complete this electronic survey by October 24. If this applies to your hospital, please complete the individual surveys for your hospital, and every owned or affiliated ASC that you operate. The survey includes questions about the numbers of surgery suites operated, hours of operation, clean up time, length of procedures, etc. The data is important in helping...

In September, KHA conducted a survey of hospital members in an effort to better understand the extent of telemetry use and needs across the state. The results have been summarized and indicate wide usage of telemetry across all patient care settings. Most hospitals are using centralized monitoring with designated personnel, typically nursing staff or trained technologists, serving as monitoring techs. Several hospitals indicated a shortage in telemetry monitored beds, especially during peak seasons. Larger facilities (250+ beds) reported a shortage most often.

The full survey results can be found in the Members Only section of the KHA website, www.kyha.com, under Special Publications and Presentations. If you do not know your facility's user name or password, hospital chief executive officers may contact Ginger Dreyer at KHA (502-426-6220 or 800-945-4542 or via email at gdreyer@kyha.com).

Below are several important pieces of information regarding AHA's data collection of hospitals’ experience with Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs).

Standalone RAC administrative burden survey
Hospital chief executive officers have been sent a link to an AHA survey that attempts to gain greater insight into the resources – both financial and staff time – that hospitals are utilizing to comply with RAC audits. These hidden expenses, beyond the value of recoupments, are important to measure in order to illustrate the total cost of RAC audits to hospitals. This survey is separate from the RACTrac survey. The deadline for the survey to be completed is September 19.

RACTrac update to be launched in October reporting period
AHA has undertaken a substantial revision of the RACTrac survey in order to gain important information on key advocacy areas, including rebilling and appeals. In support of this effort, the AHA’s claim level tracking tool has been updated for hospitals to...

KHA is conducting a survey to determine the size and scope of cardiac telemetry monitoring in Kentucky hospitals in an effort to determine ongoing needs. The survey was requested by a Kentucky hospital system. KHA will summarize the results and no hospital-specific data will be shared. Individual hospital responses are confidential. The summary results will be made available for all hospitals to review through the KHA website.

On May 1, KHA distributed an electronic survey via e-mail to all Kentucky hospital chief nursing officers and directors of quality. The survey is part of KHA's strategic planning process as the Association begins to plan for sustainability of valuable quality improvement resources to support identified needs. KHA asks every hospital to share some brief information about the quality improvement relationships in which you engage and provide feedback on both the value of the Hospital Engagement Network (HEN) services as well as services provided by other third parties. The survey should take less than 10 minutes to fill out. CNOs or directors of quality should be well positioned to answer the questions which include information about any quality improvement (Q.I.) consulting arrangements you have, the range of services provided within these programs, cost associated with projects, value of services you use and Q.I. needs your hospital has identified for the next three years.

On Monday, April 7, Myers and Stauffer, the contractor conducting the Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) Audits for Kentucky Medicaid, distributed to hospitals by mail the fee for service (FFS) crossover and managed care organization (MCO) paid claims listing needed to complete the data submission required for the Medicaid DSH Surveys. The revised due date for the DSH survey is now April 25.

Hospitals are encouraged to submit the most complete and accurate data possible, keeping in mind the definition of uncompensated care. The 2011 audit year is the first year that hospitals may be subject to return a portion of their DSH payments if they are unable to document uncompensated care cost in excess of their Medicaid DSH payments received. In prior years since the findings were informational and hospitals were not subject to recoupments, many hospitals may not have filed all uncompensated care cost. Instead, they just filed enough cost to “cover” the amount of Medicaid DSH received.

Kentucky hospitals are being asked to participate in a brief survey to help update the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) profile on Kentucky tobacco prevention efforts. The survey is in electronic format and should take only 5-10 minutes to complete. Please forward this survey to your hospital staff that oversees your tobacco prevention and cessation efforts for completion.

The AHA encourages all hospitals to complete the 2014 National Governance Survey, a research project initiated every three years by the AHA and its Center for Healthcare Governance to profile the changing landscape of governance in America’s hospitals and health systems. The survey will benchmark current board structures, practices and culture and compare them with previous AHA governance surveys, as well as highlight best practices and trends in the evolving environment.

Both hospital chief executive officers and board chairmen are encouraged to complete the multiple-choice survey, which will close April 30. A letter containing instructions for accessing the electronic survey was recently e-mailed to hospital administrators.

Dean Dorton is currently conducting its second annual Physician Group Integration survey. KHA encourages all hospitals to complete the online survey. The link was e-mailed to each hospital originally on January 13 and again on February 4.

The report on last year's findings was shared with KHA members, along with Dean Dorton presentations, at the October 2013 KHA District Meetings and during the recent Physician Leadership Forum meeting. There were excellent discussions at these meetings, which provided feedback that Dean Dorton included for questions in this follow-up survey.

The higher the response rate for this survey, the better will be the compiled results and findings that will be shared with hospitals.

All Kentucky hospitals will be receiving a packet next week containing the AHA Annual Survey and login information to complete the survey online. It is vital to collect accurate and updated information for your institution each year. Health care leaders, policy makers, researchers and consumers use the AHA Annual Survey Database to get a snapshot of the provider market. The AHA Annual Survey is an important source of provider data and is the origin of AHA Guide®, Hospital Statistics™ and now U.S. News & World Report’s Directory of America’s Hospitals (www.usnews.com). Your response to the survey assures that your hospital’s information will be represented in these resources and available to individuals nationwide.

The annual survey measures information technology adoption, implementation and use in four areas: infrastructure; business and administrative management; clinical quality and safety; and clinical integration.

The KHA Compensation Survey is underway. KHA has sent an invitation to each hospital staff member who is usually responsible for the completion of this survey. If staff responsibilities have changed, please notify Compdata Surveys of the newly designated staff member.

This year, the Workforce Survey will be combined with the Compensation Survey to reduce paperwork for hospitals. To ease survey completion, your 2013 responses have been pre-populated in this year's questionnaire if you submitted your data electronically last year. The submission deadline is Friday, January 31, and the results will be released in April.

Remember, you can report salaries for each facility type (e.g., physician clinic, long-term care). Reporting your data this way allows KHA to differentiate salaries by facility for your benefit.